Alternatively, there's the Sex & Music version that has the accmpanying song.
The image accompanying this story is by Francesco D'Isa.
Arbeit Macht Frei
The old woman sat in the chair facing the corner of the room. According to her daughter, the woman didn’t want to face the window, nor did she fancy sunlight.
“She doesn’t speak much,” the woman said, before exiting. Sarah looked outside the window, followed the woman crossing the road. A uniformed driver stepped out of a navy Bentley to open the door for his passenger. “Nice if you’ve got it,” Sarah muttered, and exited the room.
Mrs Schueller’s daughter looked to be in her forties, yet retained a vitality about her that could have been surgically enhanced. The nursing home grapevine ran into overdrive each time she visited her poorly mother.
“You’d think, with all the money she has, she’d buy her something decent to wear.”
She only bought her essentials like nightgowns, toiletries, slippers and the occasional dress; the old woman barely showed interest in food, let alone frocks. Each day someone fed, bathed and changed her soiled incontinence pad. She was toileted at two hourly intervals, and this often produced nothing. They were all accustomed to entering the room, usually at the end of their shifts, to the fetid odor of shit.
The other nurses preferred to keep well away from the old woman, and Sarah found it peculiar that they’d wear rubber gloves as they changed her from her day frock to her nightgown. She couldn’t understand it.
“Just in case. You never know when they’ll wet themselves. She’s over eighty, you know.”
The curiosity lingered, particularly one afternoon when two staff rang in sick. The front ward became Sarah’s domain that afternoon.
“She’s on your list of afternoon showers,” Mavis, the Sister-in-Charge reminded Sarah of her duties as she rinsed a few bedpans in the sluice room. Relieved to swap the fragrant notes of urine, for steam, she stripped off her heavy rubber gloves and made a pit stop at a bathroom to retrieve a shower chair. She enlisted Toby, her male counterpart, to help her transfer the old woman into the chair.
“Gloves?”
“Oh come on,” she sighed.
“It’s the rule.”
She pulled on a air of surgical gloves, and heaved along with Toby.
“She doesn’t look that heavy.”
“She doesn’t carry her weight. Makes it heavier.”
She reversed out of the room. Mrs Schueller gazed at the receding wall, and Toby waved.
“Have fun.”
Just as she was about to wheel the woman into the shower, another staff member interrupted.
“Oh, you can’t use soap. She’ll see it and go bananas. Here…”
The woman handed Sarah her a plastic bottle with a pump nozzle. Sarah gently pulled Mrs Schueller forward, in a half embrace, and unbuttoned the gown from the back. The woman’s scrawny body startled her. Devoid of any surplus fat, each jutting bone stubbornly stared at Sarah. The old woman’s deflated breasts, breasts that may have one day enticed many males, hung down toward her navel like empty heshen sacks. Sarah couldn’t avoid the fear that whispered through these moments. Age, like Clotho, claimed everyone in its path by snipping the string of youth. The woman eyed a speck on the floor, a soap sud or a crack in the tiling, Sarah couldn’t tell. As she ran the water and rinsed the woman’s body, her eyes settled on, what appeared to be an ink smudge on the inside of Mrs Schueller’s wrist. Her first instinct was to rub the area of skin with her soaped up flannel but on further inspection…
120 899
The number, tattooed into the paper thin flesh, gained new life as Sarah’s gloved hand raised Mrs Schueller’s wrist. “I bet you’ve got plenty stories to tell…” she said, and briefly reflected on the possibilities. This hastened the shower. Sarah felt empty, yet curious to find out more.
After returning the woman to her easy chair, to face the wall as instructed, she made her way to the nurses station.
“I’m quite busy.” The RN frowned at her mentioning of the number, and made her point. It was time to distribute evening meds. She pulled out her stainless steel trolley, and quietly wheeled the cold stainless steel trolley down the carpeted hallway.
During a quick break, with the other two nurses, she opened her mouth and delivered her question. Their eyes widened.
“You have to wear gloves. That’s the rule. Didn’t you know?”
It was a first for her. She was of the understanding of gloves being used at obvious sites of contamination. This primarily involved contact with urine, saliva, blood or faeces, but while changing someone’s dry clothes?
“It’s not like they’re diseased. They’re old.”
They eyed her warily, and diverted the conversation toward an upcoming concert.
All in all, Sarah’s first day went well, and many days followed. The supposedly sick staff members returned, and the days rolled ahead. She returned to her assigned male ward where each man, riddled with Korsakoff’s, Alzheimers and Parkinsons, brought new meaning into life education. What is a man, but the sum of all his achievements before each cell reaches its use by date? She’d return home each night, and cozy up with Adrian, her boyfriend of three years.
Adrian absorbed her daily detail, and laughed at the cringe worthy moments.
“It’s a job, not your life.”
“But it’s scary to think that we’ll one day be like that.”
“I’d rather you put me out of my misery first,” he jovially replied, and winked as he unzipped his jeans.
“You’re really terrible… But I like it,” she smiled.
They slept, after entangling their limbs. Her gargantuan efforts reaped rewards, and their lovemaking reached another milestone. She knelt on the floor as he sat on the edge of their bed, and opened her mouth in wait. It’s something she always wanted to do; she opened wide, and lowered her boundaries. He sucked on his breath the minute she told him she needed him to fuck her mouth. Other times she’d mind the occasional gag reflex, this time she rode the discomfort. It oddly imbued life into the moment. She took his cock, and closes her eyes as his shaft fully occupied her mouth. He moaned, and plunged deep inside her slippery warmth.
Yes.. Fuck.. Oh shit….
Adrian’s mouth fell open as the first spasm partially claimed him, and his eyes lit up as he watched her swallow the product of her skill and his arousal. They took a break, she lazily smoked a cigarette, before her encore. She rode him, absorbed his cock into her from above, and ground her flesh against his, until her clitoris screamed.
It’s the spring in the step following the vital fuck that blurs other mundane elements. Sarah’s vitality was fuelled by her inner knowledge; her breasts, after her morning shower, felt heavier yet became acutely responsive to Adrian’s caresses over the passing weeks. She didn’t need a test to know of her pregnancy; her mouth couldn’t tolerate her acrid morning coffee, and her cigarette habit ground to a halt. She was running late, barely made the train, but put it all down to the fun elements of the daily grind. Life, as she saw it, was far too short and her observation of aged souls proved it.
She passed the sleek Bentley after she crossed the rode and made her way into the grounds. Curiosity fired up her thoughts, and she quickly made her way to the front room.
“Ray’s sick, you’ll have to work his section.” She didn’t mind, and even thanked Mavis in passing. It offered a days respite from the wandering hands and, ‘nursie, I’ve got a surprise for you,’ moments just before they exposed their ancient penises hoping she’d be shocked.
She silently entered the room to see the woman brushing her mother’s hair.
“Don’t mind me,” she said. Her right hand gripped a hairbrush, and the other peculiar thing she noticed was that of the woman wearing a pair of fine black leather gloves.
“It’s quite hot,” she couldn’t help but nod toward the gloves. Her curiosity got the better of her.
“I have dermatitis…” she turned to face the same wall that her mother faced, but stopped to look at Sarah, “That’s my father.” Sarah peered at the photograph. The man’s face appeared partially blurred. She put it down to the age of the picture. He stood, wearing a uniform she couldn’t identify. Tall, well developed, and proud, he looked to be in his mid-twenties.
“Lovely picture,” Sarah said, and thought to ask about the lacking wedding pictures. Mrs Schueller never appeared in any of the few silver framed family photographs.
Sarah then eyed her watch, and realized the time and need to check on the woman in a discreet manner. Her hand gripped the armrest, and the woman abruptly turned.
“You mustn’t!”
“I-I’m sorry?”
“She doesn’t like people touching her. Haven’t they told you?” The woman reared back and glared at her.
“No, they haven’t,” she replied, hoping Mrs Schueller was dry.
“She just doesn’t like it,” her eyes returned to the silent old woman, whose eyes remained fixed straight ahead. What did she see each day?
“Okay.”
“You haven’t touched her have you? Then again they’d tell me…”
“No, I haven’t.”
“I’ll be fine from her on out. I’ll ring the buzzer if I need anything. Thank you,” she nodded, and continued brushing the woman’s silver hair.
Her evening drew to a close. They’d completed all the rounds, and then the RN entered the locker rooms.
“Who’s in for a night shift? Mary called in. Her son’s sick.”
“I’ve an appointment in the morning, sorry.” The RN then looked at her.
“I…” she didn’t really want to. Her thoughts returned to the intimate evening she planned but she also thought of penalty rates and how she’d be able to fork out for a few things to further liven up the sex.
“I know it’s short notice. Agency staff take God knows how long to get here…”
“All right.”
The night shift meant her and another RN. They’d both supposedly share the work. This meant that she’d be doing the work on her own, at half measures while the RN sat and caught up on her purl one and twos, throughout the infomercials and all their new age gurus, fitness instructors and the odd celebrity raving on about some new anti-acne produce that ‘saved them after years of suffering.’ It all began smoothly enough. She sat in the day room with Therese. They exchanged few words, and sat in front of the television. Sarah killed time by leafing through magazines offering three day diets, the latest celebrity rehab moment and the latest fashion fad.
“I’ll go and have a look in, then I’ll make a coffee. I’ll be in the kitchen in case you need me.” Therese nodded, yawned, and rested her legs on a footstool as Anthony Robbins ran onto the television screen. She couldn’t blame Therese if she feel asleep, each repetitive broadcast was enough to take anyone off to dreamland.
After checking the wards at the rear, she moved up along the hallway. She hoped the residents in the front would be equally dry, but didn’t hold out much. The residents in the other wards were ambulant, semi independent and still retained their bladder and bowel functions. There were only two rooms at the front of the home. She entered the first to her right. All the woman slept, and her hand crept under the sheet. Shit. All three drawer sheets needed to be changed. She quietly got on with the job, lowering one bedrail at a time, gently rolling each sleeping body to remove the wet sheet and replace it with a dry one. The nightlight guided her way, but even so, its eerie yellow-brown glow imparted a gloomy ambience. She then turned, looked behind her. Stupid to feel alone when there were others within the same room. Not like someone will attack you, she thought, and continued. The last woman, half awake on the turn, mumbled and drifted back to the place she preferred to be. Dreams offered an alternate route where one could randomly recapture one’s youth, dreams and desires. She finished, dumped the soiled sheets into the hooked canvas laundry bag, and exited.
“Shit,” she mumbled. She tossed away her gloves with the sheets. Both were inverted, and she looked on her trolley for the box. Nothing. Only three more beds remained, and she was sure she could chance it. It was only urine, she thought. She’d changed how many diapers while babysitting for friends, besides she only had to carefully roll away the wet sheet. If she was confronted with shit, she could race back to the sluice room for gloves. No huge deal. Another dark room awaited her. She rolled the trolley toward its centre and searched the darkness for the first bed, to switch on the light.
Her eyes made out two blanketed lumps, but the third was missing from its bed. She blinked a few times. Darkness tended to exaggerate shapes. It was as her eyes adjusted that another sound perked up her ears. She cocked her head to the side. Was someone dragging their feet? She turned, saw nothing.
“Fraulein…” the croaky whisper, far away yet so close, chilled and awed her. It could only come from one person, Sarah thought.
It was as she backed away from the trolley, quietly and calmly, that she saw the bare foot.
“What are you doing there?” she carefully sidestepped the body, and turned on the overhead light.
Mrs Schueller’s eyes widened, and her faced jerked upright to reveal a pair of glimmering brown eyes.
She couldn’t understand, and couldn’t comprehend the woman’s about turn. Each word smoothly slipped through her pale lips. Aside from registering Fraulein, each word following was uttered in a language she’d never come across.
The old woman raised her right arm and patted her chest. Her sleeveless cotton ’three sizes too big’ nightgown slipped over her bony right shoulder.
“Rom… Rom…Nicht!” she shook her head.
“Are you all right Mrs Schueller?”
“Nicht!”
You’re not Mrs Schueller?
Sarah couldn’t find the words to ask the question.
Her hands gripped her plaits, and her lips hung open until her breath squeaked through her lungs. Was she screaming?
“Okay. I’ll get you up.”
The old woman nodded, smiled and leaned forward. She bent her knees, surprised at the abrupt animation. It was something Oliver Sacks would be interested in, she thought as her arms reached under the old woman’s armpits. She stopped to steady herself. Her head briefly swam. She put it down to her sudden shift. Her hands finally held her firmly, and she pushed up at the knee only to feel her arms lighten with the new load. She looked at the floor, noticed the old woman’s feet bearing her own weight.
“But you’re not supposed to…”
Mrs Schueller’s dewy eyes smiled before reaching into her.
“I…” a searing pulse embraced her head. She looked at the woman, and felt far removed from the room. Her eyes searched the woman’s face.
“Sie und ich…” the woman’s lips froze into a grin. The words fluttered into Sarah’s mind, looping into her own thoughts. “Sie und ich…”
Her hands. They were glued to the old woman, yet she couldn’t feel them.
Therese?
The thought formed within her mind. She called out but her vocal chords didn’t register each electrical impulse.
Her eyes closed, and she drifted along an unfamiliar current.
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